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Backstory of the Poem “Bubble Cut Barbie”

Updated: Sep 24


This article originally appeared on Chris Cooper's blog. Thank you Chris!!!





Before we explore the backstory of the poems, here it is, broken into stanzas so you can see the sonnet structure: 


Bubble Cut Barbie


Little Lazarus, I lifted her, 

from her cellophane box—kissed her dark 

pink lips, side-glancing eyes, and Titian hair, 

bubble cut like Sister’s and Mother’s. At the parlor,


where they sat under silver domes, I haunted the corners,

stripped Barbie’s striped suit. She smiled, 

asked me to touch her nippleless breasts, her unfolded vulva. 

I said Yes.Yes. She smiled harder and harder.


As Mother and Sister, bee hives polished, stood

and smoothed their pencil skirts, 

I whispered in an unhollowed ear: I’ll never be real. 

I was awed by the power of being seen. Only seen—


no babies to break me, nothing to enter me, no bleeding, 

no dying. I’d never do anything.



originally published in Limp Wrist #6


1.  Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form?


I knew I wanted to write a poem about Barbie for Limp Wrist’s Barbie issue. I’d sent them a poem I liked about Dolly Parton for their Dolly issue and was disappointed when they didn’t take it. I like to alchemize rejection into motivation! So, when the call for Barbie submissions came, I settled down in earnest and turned on my Barbie vibe. 


First, I cut and paste a couple of words and phrases from my word bank, a 250 page list of words and phrases that I maintain for inspiration. I pasted Yes Yes and She smiled harder and harder and also some others that I later removed. You can see the rejected words and phrases in the first draft shared below. 


So I had a couple of words and phrases, but I needed more, so I researched Barbie and learned I’d owned a “Bubble Cut Barbie.” Oh my God, how great is that? Consonance, alliteration and a conflicted image—bubble is cute, and cut is violent. Perfect. I knew I had my title. I found a description of a Bubble Cut Barbie for sale on Etsy, and I pasted the description onto my draft to plunder:


Barbie has dark pink lips that are very full, big blue side glancing eyes, black eyeliner and dark brown, thick eyebrows. She has beautiful titian colored hair in the bubble cut style…She comes wearing a vintage blue and white stripe Premier bathing suit.



Titian colored hair…what’s that? Could they mean the famous Renaissance painter? Turns out they did because “he liked to paint red-haired women.” I found this odd and surprising—that such a commercial product drew its references from the Renaissance. I knew I had to include Titian hair. I also pilfered the marvelous side-glancing eyes, the striped bathing suit, and—from the accompanying Etsy photo—the image of a cellophane-covered box, like a glitzy coffin, where Barbie lay as if in suspended animation.


Once I had these words and phrases, I began. I’d been reading Sylvia Plath’s poetry and her new biography, Red Comet, so the phrase Little Lazarus appeared organically, and it seemed appropriate considering the time— mid-century, when Plath struggled with issues of appearance, clothes, make up, marriage; how to be a wife, mother, and also a genius-poet. She struggled and struggled, the whole time looking gorgeous. Her demise haunts the poem and raises the stakes.


Of course, my mind traveled back to my sister and mother maintaining their bubble hairdos, shopping for sponge-rubber falsies, and consulting with plastic surgeons, while I watched on the fringes, feeling conflicted, and, of course, playing with Barbies. 


At first, I had a long poem, but I discerned its sonnet-like features: it was around fourteen lines and developed like a sonnet—through three quatrains, each one deepening the  drama, then a mic drop couplet. So I cut the poem to fourteen lines and numbered them, like this: 


  1. Little Lazarus, I lifted her, 

  2. from her cellophane box—kissed her dark 

  3. pink lips and side-glancing eyes, Titian hair, 

  4. bubble cut like Sister’s and Mother’s. At the parlour

  5. when they sat under silver domes, 

  6. I stripped the striped suit off Bubble Cut Barbie. She smiled, 

  7. asked me to touch her nippleless breasts, her unfolded vulva. 

  8. I said Yes. Yes. She smiled harder and harder

  9. as Sister and Mother, bee hives polished, stood

  10. and smoothed their pencil skirts, I whispered 

  11. in an unhollowed ear: I’ll never be real. 

  12. I was awed by the power of being seen. Only seen—

  13. no babies to break me, nothing to enter me, no bleeding, 

  14. no dying. I’d never do anything. 


This is an early draft— different from the final, but you can see the numbers. I kept the numbers as I revised—a tool to constrain myself. When I wrote I’d never do anything, I knew I’d landed like a falling cat. I often feel a shiver when I write my final line, a squeeze of serotonin.  


Then, since it’s a sonnet, I wanted rhymes—which you can see I achieved to some extent, though not strictly sonnet-like, with line endings like her, dark, hair, corner, parlor, skirts, harder and real, seen, bleeding, anything. The only line endings that are not rhymed, but still have some resonance, are smiled, vulva, and stood, which appear at the end of the third quatrain going into the last where the drama and instability begins to peak (a little earlier than in a strict sonnet). 


The rhymes resume at the end of the last quatrain and in the final couplet, which feels like an uncomfortable resignation on the part of the speaker. The rhymes go from growls rrrr to squeals eeeee, but end like a bell innng:


I chose the rhymes for the pleasure of the music and the exigencies of the sonnet, but now, I see the work they are doing. I’ve noticed that writing in forms, like sonnets and sestinas etc.-- provides those kinds of perks. 

 

2. Where were you when you started to actually write the poem?  And please describe the place in great detail.

Every morning, while it’s still dark, I sit with my laptop in my living room in a purple plush chair, facing a view of field and forest. The dog’s at my feet and I sip Pu Erh out of a clay mug fashioned by my son-in-law. Same time, same place, everyday, without exception. Bad ergonomics, I know. Someday I’ll develop a different posture as I write, but I stand frequently, stretch, and walk the dog for a few minutes. That’s a lie, or maybe an aspiration, I work in a frenzy and can barely stop myself.


3. What month and year did you start writing this poem?

Looking into my Google history, I see I began on November 10th, 2021 at 9:43 in the morning. I have ten pages of drafts and it was mostly finished on November 18th at 10:24 a.m, although I did place it in my document of “finished” poems and continued to tweak it there. This poem came quickly compared to others, which is good. I had a deadline.


4. Were there any lines in any of your rough drafts of this poem that were not in the final version?  And can you share them with us? 


Here’s a very early draft with lines I moved, revised, or excised. The opening was taken from my word list: It was like undressing my soul. An OK line, but merely an entry to the poem, and, therefore, had to go. Most of the original lines have been changed or moved: 


Bubble Cut Barbie


It was like undressing my soul, her body lifted 

out of the cellophane lid, rebirth 

from a tiny coffin. Little Lazarus,

I lifted her, with her dark pink lips, side-glancing 

eyes, her Titian hair, bubble cut 

like my sister’s and mother’s. The next day

at the parlor as they sat under silver domes, 

I undressed and dressed Bubble Cut Barbie. 

She smiled at me, told me to touch her nippleless breasts, 

her unfolded impenetrable vulva. I said Yes. Yes. 

She smiled harder and harder

until Sister and Mother were done, their smooth

cone heads polished. I don’t have to be real, I whispered,

awed by the power of pinkness, the power of being seen 

in a female body, without 

being entered, without bleeding

with no babies breaking the flesh, without dying, 

without doing anything at all. 


5. What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? 

I want them to feel! I think it was Lucille Cliffton who’d say, after a poem was read aloud, “Do you feel it?”That’s the most important quality—when a poem changes the tenor of the room. 


But to be more specific, it was hard to be a little girl surrounded by retrograde ideas about women—the linking of their power and appearance. It was materialistic, synthetic, a worship of false idols. Odder still, was the sexual frisson I felt when confronted with the fetishizing of the female form. I found it both repellant and alluring. I want my readers to feel that ambivalence, but if they feel anything, that’s cool.


6. Which part of the poem was the most emotional for you to write and why? 


Talking about my sister and mother at the beauty parlor. I hated it there. I was bored, conflicted, and grossed out. I dreaded growing up, felt anguish about the pressure to become a manufactured babe that enticed men like a praying mantis. I knew I couldn’t do it! 


If I were young today, I would probably identify as non-binary. I think that might be why, when I was a high school teacher, my room was a sanctuary for LGBTQ kids. Somehow they knew I identified with them. At sixty-five, I feel settled into my identity. My gender and sexuality don’t emerge consciously as a problematic issue, but in the way of poetry, when I write about my childhood and early adulthood, I often gain insight into who I am and how I developed. Back then, my identity as a woman was conflicted and confused, and, in my memories, they still are to some degree. It surprises me, sometimes, when I catch myself critiquing my naked body in the mirror. When I write, it helps me make sense of it.


7.  Has this poem been published?  And if so where?

Limp Wrist Issue 6…an all Barbie issue! Thank you Dustin Brookshire and Denise Duhamel for publishing it!

 

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